


Lumen de Lumine

by Esteliel



Category: Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Angst, Consent Issues, Established Relationship, Javert Lives, M/M, Tears
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-23
Updated: 2016-03-23
Packaged: 2018-05-28 12:00:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6328009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Esteliel/pseuds/Esteliel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post-Seine, Valjean's days are filled with light. But there are nights when Valjean wakes to shadows.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lumen de Lumine

There are Sundays when Javert is bathed in light. Fractured rays of blue, gold, green swathe him in holiness as he kneels next to Valjean, the faces of Saints clothing him in the jewel colors of stained glass. Valjean listens to Javert's voice whispering _lumen de lumine_ alongside him while his heart soars in breathless joy.

He breathes the same joy when later, Javert's face turns towards his as they walk back from Saint-Sulpice in the light of the sun. Javert's fingers find his, and Valjean squeezes them with the devotion of prayer.

***

There are afternoons in the garden when the scent of crushed grass and dirt paints life onto Valjean's scarred limbs. Javert's hoarse laughter stirs something in his chest to budding until it hurts to feel the green growth burst through his veins and uncurl tender, bruising blossoms in his fingertips, his racing heart, the fevered pulse between his legs.

Javert's fingers trace sunshine against his cheek. The rain of his kisses coaxes forth trembling tendrils and Valjean, overwhelmed, surrenders to the inevitability of nature, an urgency both frightening and holy.

***

There are evenings when the press of Javert's limbs clothes him in affection. The wetness of Javert's mouth tastes as sweet as the wine of Communion, the trembling of limbs against his own as pure as the pale smile of the Virgin.

They tangle in the bed on clean linen, Javert's large hands coaxing forth fecundity to swell his heart, his soul, his groin until he wants to burst with life. Valjean allows himself to be spread out and mapped. Under the warm light of Javert's regard, his skin becoming a sensitive animal, his pelt clothing his trembling heart in his chest. Javert worships his breast with the warmth of tongue and lips until his nipples ache with the burst of spring, the old, withered rootstock of his body woken to fruitfulness by Javert's devouring regard.

Between his legs, his shaft stands stiff. It does not seem a frightening thing when Javert laves that too with attention. His hands are too greedy for a gardener, but all the same Valjean surrenders himself to it with gladness.

There is sunlight in this too: it is reflected in Javert's wide eyes, the redness of his cheeks, the drops of sweat that roll down his neck. It is in the stiffness of his need, the shaft that stands at attention between his legs, a truncheon of hard demands that nevertheless feels soft when it rubs against Valjean's body.

They twine around each other like vines. Despite the terror of such surrender, it is too natural to resist, and he can only allow his body to bend and arch and reach helplessly for the light that is Javert, a sun so bright that he fears it will scald him as sap rushes through and out of him. It feels at once alien and holy: the stiffness of his body like a bright-blossoming bud grafted onto the lesser rose stock of his own body by Javert's hands.

***

There are nights when Valjean wakes to shadows. The sun has been swallowed by darkness. The bedroom is filled by the silence of incarcerated men: a living malevolence that permeates the air and makes him tremble at the sound of blankets rustling and bodies breathing and moving.

It is dark. He cannot see. Javert is heavy against his back, a tall shadow breathing threat against his skin.

Valjean holds himself motionless, exhaling his own terror into his pillow. Like a wolf, Javert gnaws pleasure from the bones of his body, ravenous and insatiable. Javert is stiff, sliding against him, rough with coarse hair. Javert's sex prods at him, a cudgel of brutal wood meant to subdue and punish.

A lifetime of pain forces Valjean to bear the humiliation of being invaded, put to use, Jean-the-Jack once more but a tool as he breathes shallow gasps into his pillow and squeezes his eyes shut against the tears.

Fear holds him frozen. Javert's truncheon batters him relentlessly, finding all the vulnerable places where there is still some softness left in him, spreading them open until within, he feels as scarred as without.

Javert's tongue licks thick and hot against his shoulder, following the whorls of a brand, and Valjean holds still for it all. He trembles as he trembled when they riveted the collar into place; now Javert's large hands close like shackles around his wrists instead, and Javert's loud panting drowns out the panicked thudding of his heart.

In the darkness, there is no escape from the scars that line his body. He feels them in the hot sweat the slide of Javert's body rubs into them, and he dares not lift his head nor speak for fear that the lash might fall down on him again. He tastes salt on his lips, feels it drip into the pillow. It soaks into the earth to render it barren, withering everything green and growing.

The words Javert groans hoarsely into his skin chill him like the wind from the sea that brings with it the stink of rotting sea weed. In the absence of light, it is impossible to escape that cell, the press of unwashed bodies, the weight of the chain. The bite of hunger and the burning of whip marks are more familiar than the sound of his own voice; the weight of Javert on his back can barely be borne, and yet what is he but a jack meant to bear whatever he is tasked with?

Escape is impossible. He bears that weight as he has borne the caryatid of Puget. Javert is hot inside him, although the cold bites at Valjean's limbs even now.

When Javert spills himself, groaning words that bring with them the echoes of curses and shouts, tears are still running down Valjean's face. He is silent and motionless, allowing himself to be trapped within this body which has done the bidding of others for longer than it has followed his own commands.

In the darkness, it is hard to believe that the sun will rise in the morning. For a man such as him, there is nothing but shadows and salted earth.

Soon, he tells himself, dawn will warm the sheets of this room, and the rays of the morning sun will vanish the shadow of the man on his back—but for now, the chains of Javert's hands and his memories hold firm, and he trembles here in the darkness where no one sees or hears.


End file.
